will be worthless unless I can post pictures! I can see the insert image button and also the insert link button. Can someone remind this numbskull how to simply post pictures?

Get a Photobucket account and upload the images there. Then simply copy the image link for that picture and paste it into a post on here.

 

Hiya, interesting stuff, are you planning to race in MAX5 this year? I'm just starting out, would be good to glean a bit of knowledge from an experienced racer

Cheers
Matt

 

hi Matt,

No, no MAX 5 or Ma5da for me I am afraid. No way would this car be called legal to their regs! CSCC is the UK stuff I am interested in plus longer races abroad in due course. And whilst I have had an MSA license since 1993 I have only circuit raced for 5 years so do not call myself experienced really compared to some. And certainly not to the current MX5 racers out there who know their cars way more than I do, from years of racing the same car. Good luck with your racing this year, post your stories on the forum, they would be good to read. Nothing beats racing!

 

Sounds like he is racing in CSCC.

Don't blame you for not sharing everything. Can't give away all the advantage. lol

 

Malcolm I don't know if you saw what I posted on PH.

But the V8 conversion involves using a tubular front subframe said to save 10kg IIRC

A search on "Martin's V8 Miata kit" would bring it up.

 

Yes I know of that and would like it but it is one item too many at present. I can always bolt it in another time. It is not a bad cost per kilo saved though.

 

Great stuff!! I've been watching for a thread on this car and will follow with interest!! Let us know when the time comes and we'll come and cheer you on at your races.

Russell.

 

Guide to posting pictures Here

Very interested to watch this grow

Now lets see some pictures

 

Potentially an epic thread. PIcs of previous/current cars required immediately!

Keep us updated!

 

Threads like this make me jealous.

Please do post pics and keep us updated!!

 

Ok Lets see if these pictures come out......

Firstly other rides of mine over the years.

This is my GTD at home when being featured in a magazine. Never saw the article printed but they gave me the pictures anyway. Next day I took the car to the Le Mans Classic and filled in up with rain and La Sarthe sand!

If you want to see that car in action follow this link from 2 days at Spa in Sept 2009



Shortly after I got marrried, I bought my wife this Little Lotus 51c. It is a formula ford car but it was tuned to 160 bhp which works out at 400 bhp per ton. And with these big F1 style wheels on, it looked great. Now sold. This picture is Wendy driving at the Brighton Speed Trials, an event I did for 15 years on the trot, mainly in my GTD. The Lotus was good for a 11.8 sec 1/4 mile.

Then I bought a Prosport 3000. These cars were recently uninvited from the Historic Group C series as they were beginning to beat the proper Group C cars and that is not on really! When on song and driven well, they could do 1 min 50 laps of Silverstone GP circuit. Same as a Silk Cut Jaguar or Porsche 956. Cheap (ish) to buy but criminal to run. Now sold. Gave me Tinitus as a farewell present as flipping loud. But oh the G forces.....

Then I had my white MAX5 car which we had great fun in. This picture is from Mallory and we got our best result of the season with 3rd overall that day. Damp and twisty circuit just played into my hands. Now sold.

This one is of me in the Porsche 993 (not mine) during the Britcar 24 Hours in 2006. Came nowhere but it was fun and I got paid to drive! Made some good freinds from that event and I ended up being converted to Porsche ownership with a 996 C4S.

 

If you want to see that car in action follow this link from 2 days at Spa in Sept 2009

these?

i don't know how you do it, but you really buggered those tags up!

if you click reply on this post, you can see what the tags should look like.
hth
tom

 

It's because you've wrapped the image location (www.xxxxxxxxxxxx.jpg) in tags that define it as a link or a url

Edit your post and you'll see at each end one of these [ url] and [ /url] (without the space)

You want them wrapped in image tags [ img] and [ /img] (no space!)

 

I think ive just messed myself looking at the Porsche..........

 

Thanks for straightening me out there with the pictures, I really made that look difficult! Is there an optimum minimum size for resolution on pictures that look good but don't take up so much memory for just looking at on the web? On other forums I typically use 640 by 480 or something close to that.

Getting back on track with this thread, here is a picure of my car as I last saw it at Surface Processing Ltd. They just lifted it of the trailer! Not very heavy then.

Then the most current shot of the car

 

Thanks for straightening me out there with the pictures, I really made that look difficult! Is there an optimum minimum size for resolution on pictures that look good but don't take up so much memory for just looking at on the web? On other forums I typically use 640 by 480 or something close to that.

the forum automatically re-sizes to stop you having to scroll left/right when images are too large.

IMO 640x480 is far too small, post as big as you like, at least then you can click on the image and see it in high quality. It's 2010 if you don't have broadband an a 21" monitor, well then it sucks to be you

 

Great stuff!

 

So much

in one thread, fantastic!

 

I run a pair of 22 inch wide screen monitors, will that do?

 

Fanfooooooooooooooooooookintastic.

Me fave thread

 

Just seen this thread Malcolm. I have a steel shell (not a Mazda, a Nissan), I'd like to have stripped and was considering using Surface Processing, will you having the shell dipped by them once stripped? I have seen some shells that are beautifully prepared but not dipped in primer that have deteriorated within months due to moisture ingress in box sections and seams. Their dipping option is supposed to alleviate this potential issue. Safety Devices say they are excellent people but definitely recommend having the shell dipped in primer rather than just sprayed. Good luck with it!

 

Sorry missed this question from earlier.

Yes once I have have the car back to bare metal, it will come home for some work to be done on it and then go back for a secondary dip to remove any new crud and surface rust that reoccured and then go for what they call e painting. This is a dipping process not a spray on process. I have had to drill holes to ensure proper drainage and these will have to be welded up later. Kinda defeats the object of dipping and painting if you then have to weld up holes but because the process is a hot dip process it sucks liquid into holes that are really tiny and so if it got into any tube or enclosed space it then causes issues later. You have to use 4-5mm holes to ensure proper drainage as otherwise the surface tension will retain liquids. Because the e paint is really a sealant/undercoat rather than a finish coat welding up some holes is annoying but not the end of the world.

If you go to the Surface Processing web site you can watch videos of the whole process. They are pretty much the only guys in the country who do this. I looked quite hard and couldn't find any one else who did this proccess. I stand to be corrected!

Yes I have removed the OEM fuel tank and cut the blister off that housed it. I have plans to put in a larger ali fuel tank for endurance racing. I don't expect more than 10 mpg out of this car and should this car make it to the start of an endurance race I wish to go up to or beyond 2.5 hour stints. When in Spec Miata we were going up to 1 hour 40 minute stints on a standard 45 litre tank. But that was getting marginal and as you may know I have run out of fuel on the last lap after 13 hours of racing before and don't wish to have it happen again.

I was being lent on by my US mates to fit a Nascar fuelling system which would refuel 12 gallons in 5 secs but that was $1000 I don't have (and that is a for a used system). In the Britcar refuelling you have to use standard fuel pumps for refuelling not dump cans or dry break systems anyway so no real gain there. However the filler cap will be moved onto the drivers side to allow for better access in pits stops so that any refueller does not have to run around the car which is safer and quicker. I have to remake the fuel filler area anyway so which side is irrelevant. May even make it central through the boot lid. No decision firm on that yet. However I do have to repanel the fuel tank area so it is firewalled from the drivers compartment so a bit of fiddling to do coming up around that rule.

An interesting refuelling rule used at VIR was that if any fuel was spilled onto the ground if the puddle or stain on the ground was more than 12 inches in any one direction, you got a drive through penalty. One more thing to bear in mind......

Inner Flitches? Not sure what you mean here. Is that the frog plates or whatever they are called? I suspect not at this stage although I have a design in mind to reinforce the ARB mounts as I have heard of those collapsing under big loadings.

 

Also curious as to how much weight that cage and mounts added, and what the final weight will be

 

That looks a great cage, I like the door bars in particular, going into the door structure should give a good bit more room inside

 

Andy Robinson Racing did the cage for me. He is a specialist in this field and also on committees for the MSA with regard to Drag Racing but also advises on roll cages. This cage is an FIA/MSA approved cage to suit my needs and purposes. It is designed to go under my hard top (which is a lightweight hard top) and the cage is also responsible for holding the roof onto the car as well. Therefore no heavy fixings as per standard roof fitments. 4 * M6 nuts and bolts for me. I am not as worried about water tigtness as some might be so no rubber seals used except for the front leading edge of the roof.

I had bought a Safety Devices cage to use. A bolt in design. That weighed in at 52kgs. This one is big smile inducing lighter! And I think a far superior design. We looked at the cages used in the states, other custom cages used in some drift cars, the safety devices item and then picked all the best bits and features, combined that with Andy's huge experience of cage building to come up with this cage. Andy prices his cages according to the number fo fixing points and extras, eg I had the hard top mounts built in and also a drivers net fitted. I consider safety a high priority so the investment is worth it to me. But it was not shockingly expensive, so Russell, phone Andy and talk to him. If he is outrageous in pricing now then I got even better value for money than I think I did!

The side impact bars do mean you have to gut the doors of your car. Really gut them. Doors are heavy so I was really happy to do this and am still looking at them for ways to reduce their still heavy weight (in my eyes) some more. I have discounted carbon as the quotes were too high for now.

This cage also required the complete removal of the dash board and cross bar, plus the rear parcel shelf and other bits and bobs of metal around the place. Being welded in and stitched to the shell in numerous places, not just up the windscreen frame, should mean overall stiffness is well up. I did think of going through the front bulkhead to the top mounts of the front suspension. I did not as the gain was percevied to be slight compared to the cost and effort. But it would be easy to come back to that later if I think it neceesary after testing. All that I have spoken to with cross bracing in the engine from one top mount to the other have said it had only a small effect. And their cars would not be as stiff as this one will be as a starting point. So I am leaving it there on cage and struts for now but you can see some seam welding has been done, in accordance with the FM recommendations, but having the car dipped will allow me to easily get some extra seam welding done in places not normally available for it. Trying to seam weld pre dipping was difficult.

Being six foot tall did create problems in meeting regulations on head clearance to the roof and cage structure. I had a custom carbon seat made, based on one from a Panoz so I am told, with ali mounts so that the seat touches the rear bulkhead and the floor at the same time. I also moved forward the chassis rail that OEM seat mounts bolt on to forward by about 8 inches. This allows fitting of runners to the seat so that when in multi driver mode the seat can be slid back and forth but without lifting the driver. This may not be that clever a decision as short drivers not only have short legs, but shorter torso's so when checking that the wife can drive the car she was so low down that she could not see the bonnet at all. Ooops! Might have to put legs on the front of the mounts after all. The seat is very comfortable and stiff, and also very light. The carbon element was about 2.7 kgs but haven't weighted it with seat mounts on yet. For now using OEM runners when needed.

As to final weight of the car, that is a bit of guesswork right now. But my MAX5 car was 865 kgs ex driver and so I should easily beat that figure. Currently the car weighs 248kgs but there are a few bits missing......

 

lookin forward to see how this transforms. nice cage!

 

nice read malcolm.

do you remove the oe tank and use an alloy tank sunk in the boot floor.. is that fm regs..?

also are you bracing the front out ie inner flitches..?

michael

 

Can you not just leave the holes you drill for drainage and bung them? May actually be good to leave them to drain rain water. Water getting trapped is why the 5 rusts normally in the first place

 

Hi Steve

Some holes yes, not an issue, others no.

 

yeah thats the one frog plates ..

michael

 

I'm talking to my fibreglassers about doors, so I'll let you know on that front, won't be cheap but will be a steal compared to carbon. The other option for doors is the guy in Sweden on Clubroadster, I think he wanted ?500 a door? Nice and light, but shipping could cost a lot, and they are very rough as far as the shape is concerned!

Russell.

 

Do let me know the door cost, but can't guarantee I will be in for some at this stage. ?500 per door for fibreglass is way too high for me. I think when I looked into racing specific carbon parts ie bonnet, boot, and doors I was looking for others to buy in with me at ?2,500 for the set. There was not enough take up interest shown for me to justify the mould costs and gamble that everyone would pay up when push came to shove. Whilst on the carbon front, in the series I wish to race in, it may be that if my car is too successful (not a certainty by any stretch of the imagination!), a logical step to make the racing more fun again would be to ban carbon body panels. A risk I was not wanting to take.

On the steel door front, if I remember rightly an OEM door with glass weighs about 18/19 kgs. Currently mine weigh about 9 kgs sans any glass. I have a scheme to reduce that further once they are back from dipping. But each peice of door I remove makes them more twisty. So my plans are a compromise between light weight and the door falling to peices at speed! I am going to be fitting polycarb windows in due course.